Understanding
by Moonchild10
Summary: One-shot BBRae. Raven discovers that a certain teammate just might understand her better than she could have imagined...


**Disclaimer: I don't own TT! D8 I wish I did!  
**

**Yay! My triumphant return to TT fanfiction! I'll probably start posting more one-shots (mostly BBRae) as soon as I finish a few large projects I'm working on. If anyone has anything they'd like to see me write, feel free to contact me at my deviantart page (tatteredmemory).**

**For now, I hope you guys enjoy the story! (:**

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The feeling of the cold metal beneath her fist was scarcely any release. She drew back her hand, which was now throbbing dully as though giving her some weak reminder that she was still in fact alive and her body didn't take a liking to this sudden abuse. Shaking her head, she stalked down the hall a few feet further before she had to stop again, legs not able to move at the sheer explosion of frustration that erupted from her mouth, almost uncontrollable, an involuntary reflex, the whistle of a kettle too full of steam.

"Ahhg!" she shreiked loudly, and then marched on, the door opening automatically as she reached her room, and she bounded inside, freedom from the outside welcome. Nothing could hurt her here. It was her haven. Her room was the one place where Raven could just be…Raven, and not have to worry about the opinions of others or appearances or keeping up an emotional wall. And yet today she found no peace here

"Raven, are you okay?" asked a voice from behind her, a shaggy head of emerald green hair and lighter green skin to match poked in through the gap in the already closing door. His large eyes stared at her in concern, not with their usual joking sparkle.

"Fine," the Azarathian muttered through clenched teeth, flopping herself down right in the middle of the bedroom floor and crossing her legs roughly like battered rag dolls. She squeezed her eyes shut and breathed deeply several times. A bit of the tightly coiled anger ran free like water through a stream cleared of a dam.

"Are you sure?"

Her annoyance rose. "Yes, I'm sure," she snapped. "Now please go." she took a few more deep breaths. "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos. Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos…" she could feel the frustration and anger slowly beginning to drain away as though the words released the blockage in a hose. She chanted steadily for several minutes, and finally, finally, her head wasn't a churning pot of boiling oil, her cheeks didn't throb from the threat of two additional eyes bursting forth, her body was returned fully to her own control, Rage losing grip, Trigon's influence fading back into the internal reservoir of evil and darkness. Her demon side retreating to her deepest, most secret part of her soul where no one could ever catch a glimpse of the terrible monster she really was. She gave a deep, relieved sigh, air rushing in and out of her lungs painlessly, this time without the agony of her Demon trying to claw its way to the surface, rip back Raven's skin and replace it with something inhuman, something that looked the same but was icy cold and yet burning to the touch, something that terrified even Raven herself. She was grateful to have it put away.

She wiped back sweat from her forehead and swiveled on the floor, only to see Beast Boy standing a few feet inside the doorway, watching her. So he hadn't heeded her warning and left. She didn't care at the moment. She was far too overcome with the exhaustion and a ghost of the splitting, aching frustration. It melted into a large lump in her throat and she pushed a few stray strands of deep violet hair from her forehead and dropped her head into her hand. The frustration of these days was sometimes too much for her. The other Titans had no idea what it was like to deal with the ordinary superhero pressures that they all faced, and then the added pressure of threats to her emotional equilibrium made it all the more trying.

She was tired of feeling as though she had no one to confide in. She was tired of feeling so lonely.

"Are you _sure_ you're okay?" the changeling asked skeptically, eyeing her with one eyebrow raised. She was not in the mood to deal with him. Why didn't he just go away? "Because you…really don't look like you're okay."

"I'm _fine._ I'm just a little frustrated. It's been a long day." Raven pressed her face harder against her hand. "Shut the door behind you."

She didn't hear him retreat. He was still there, staring at her, she could feel those emerald eyes probing the top of her head from above. "I'm sure we'll catch Mumbo tomorrow when he does something else stupid. And I'm sure this time he won't replace your head with a toilet seat." she could hear him fighting back laughter at this, though she didn't find it amusing in the least. One of the many trials of her day, and the other Titans had gotten a kick out of this. Even Robin, who usually refrained from public displays of mirth, had laughed outright at the sight of Raven with a toilet plunger sticking out of the base of her neck where a head should have been.

"It's not funny," she said, raising violet eyes to glare at him, and his smile disappeared with some effort, though and his mouth still quivered slightly, the corners threatening to jerk upward.

"Of course it's not." he was close to laugher again, and Raven lowered her head into her palm once more.

"Please go, okay?" there was no sound of him leaving the room. "Do I need to spell it out for you!?" she asked, a bit more harshly than was normal. "Go away!"

But still, the irritating green boy did not leave. "Really, it's not funny." He stood over her, and she could still feel his eyes boring into her head. "Raven…" his voice was softer now, almost calming. She sensed movement, and when she looked up between her fingers, he was crouched before her, a smile on his face.

His hands grasped hers, pulling them away from her eyes, and holding them gently. Raven was so shocked that she made no attempt to pull the hands away, staring into his eyes instead with a look that said quite plainly 'what in heaven's name are you doing?'.

"I'm sorry you had a bad day," he crooned softly, still holding her hands out between them. "But we all have bad days, don't we?"

Raven attempted to stammer an answer, but she was still at loss for words. Anything resembling a coherent sentence died upon reaching her lips and she was left there with her mouth hanging slightly open in a very unattractive way. Beast Boy flashed her a small smile and cocked his head slightly. "C'mon, what's wrong. You can tell me."

"It's just like you said…I had a bad day," Raven told him, and he watched her with large, sympathetic eyes.

"Poor Raven," Beast Boy said, shaking his head. "It's okay, I understand."

Those two words were the most magical thing Raven had heard in a very long time. She stared at him for a moment silently, her eyes quivering in a rather embarrassing way. "Beast Boy…" but she couldn't think of a way to end the sentence that would express the gratitude she was feeling toward him at the moment.

Beast Boy was stroking her hair now, which caught her a bit off-guard. He was looking her straight in the eyes, and she could feel him staring straight past her emotional wall and into the raw feelings behind it. She wondered where on earth he had gotten the daring to sit here and be so…well…openly affectionate toward her when she was never anything but cold toward him. There was a warm look in those emerald eyes that watched her every move, and they sparkled as he smiled at her, undisguised fondness radiating from them in a way that made Raven blush. She found herself not quite smiling back (she was far too surprised for that), but she knew her expression was close, and Beast Boy seemed to be delighted at getting some kind of response from her.

"You know what you need?" he asked suddenly, his hand abandoning that path across her hair that she had come to enjoy immensely and his ears perking up.

"What?" Raven barely dared to whisper, before Beast Boy had leaned forward, and, without any hesitation or nervousness whatsoever, went straight out and kissed her. He kissed her full-on on the lips without a hint of embarrassment, and held the kiss there, not trembling or pulling away. Not apologizing. Just kissing her.

Raven sat silently, violet eyes wide and staring off over the top of his head, a strong pink blush flying over her cheeks at top speed. Thoughts ran rampant in her head, and she was barely able to comprehend the situation for a moment. Before she knew it, the moment had ended, and Beast Boy sat back on his haunches and gave her a boyish grin. Raven gaped at him. He smiled back.

"Beast Boy…" for the second time in the last five minutes, she could find no words to place after his name. "What…what did you do that for?"

Beast Boy's face showed a flicker of embarrassment, which faded abruptly, before he spoke. "You always seem so lonely and sad. Even when you're smiling, there's always something behind it that's not all that convincing. Especially after the whole Malchior thing, you've been like this. I thought I'd just show you that somebody…you know…cares for you. Because I do, really. You're not like other girls, Raven." he said, choosing his words carefully. "You're special. Different. You always think you're alone, but you're not. I've been here waiting for you since the beginning." he smiled. "Waiting for you to come to your senses and realize how I really feel."

Raven stared at him in surprise for a moment, still not exactly sure that to say. Those words…something about what he said…he made it sound so true…like he really did care for her. So did he? Yes. Of course. He said he did. So why should her confusion matter? He cared for her too. That was all that she needed at the moment.

Before she could make herself think about it, Raven leaned forward to kiss him back, twining her fingers through his hair and letting him hold her, letting him kiss her, letting her unspoken feelings be heard by him through her actions until she finally pulled herself away, reluctantly abandoning his warm arms. The two were silent for a moment, staring at each other as though it were the first time they had really seen each other.

"You look like you feel better," Beast Boy said finally to kill the silence after a moment with a ridiculous grin.

Raven nodded. "I…thank you, Beast Boy. For everything."

"No problem." he gave her a winning smile. "I guess sometimes you just need someone to understand."

**Fin.**


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